Book Review: RD Armstrong Tracking the Rabbit. Lummox Press, San Pedro, 2016 (40 pages)

Tracking the Rabbit was written in memoriam for RD Armstrong’s late father, Thomas K. Armstrong (1927-2015). The book includes previously published blog narratives about his father’s struggle with Vascular Dementia and a series of poems which explore the central metaphor of the black rabbit which Armstrong strongly associates with the spirit of his father after his death. RD uses his writing in this collection to help him to try to articulate his grief, guilt and other conflicting emotions. Amongst the turmoil he finds solace in the realisation that his father is no longer suffering, and he is able to return once again to his journey of “going it alone.”

In the introductory section ‘About the Black Rabbit’ Armstrong explains to the reader the origins of his fascination with the concept of the black rabbit. In the week following his father’s death, he saw himself as a “bad son” because his grief was “slow to bubble to the surface”. RD wonders how he is “going to deal with this” and in the next day or so he finds himself in a dream and he is standing in his father’s backyard during a violent thunder and lightning storm:

“Suddenly, something was thrust into my arms: a medium sized furry thing as black as this night, unidentifiable except for its two white, buck teeth. Then I knew it was a black rabbit. I could feel its heart racing in fear (but also alive!) and pulled it closer. But just as suddenly as it had appeared it now leaped out of my arms and bolted into the dark! I was devastated, thinking that it had been a gift from my father, that I had not understood what it was until it was too late and now it was gone for good (like the old man)…but then, out of the darkness, the rabbit came bounding and leapt into my arms again!

He is quick to link this image of the black rabbit with his father’s departing spirit:

“I awoke from this wondering what in the world this meant. I knew enough about Native-American lore to realize that the black rabbit was my father’s spirit animal and that it would guide him through the death process; and this little bunny would serve as a talisman for me, as well.”

The collection is not sequenced in strict chronological order, instead we gradually learn more about RD and his relationship with his old man in the inter-weaving of texts. In the blog narrative ‘Blues for the Old Man’ (16 December 2014), RD writes that when he first heard about his father’s medical condition in 2008, he could only stay in touch with him by phone as his father lived about 500 miles away in the hills of Sierra Nevada above Sacramento.

Later in the post, he describes how he drove up to Grass Valley to visit his father and his third wife (in late 2014) and was shocked at how much he had deteriorated since he last saw him only 10 months before, even though he was 86 years old, “He had aged as if overnight. He had become a feeble old man! … He didn’t say much and he never seemed to notice that I was there…The old guy would mutter something, then cry a little, then my step-mother would tell him to quit but I wished she would leave him be.”

Before arriving to visit his dad, RD imagined his father staring out a window, glancing at his watch occasionally and quietly marking time. Now sitting with him during the last hour he wished he “had a big, fluffy pillow” to smother him. He is genuinely horrified and cannot find the words to describe what he is thinking,” I just wanted to go and put as many miles behind me as I could.”

In the blog narrative, “The Dreaded Phone-call” (17 January 2015), RD receives a phone call from his brother Chris who informs him their father has died. RD is still struggling within himself to reconcile the “hulking” image he has of his father with what he saw a month before, of a man with “dead eyes”, with “this caricature of a face, once familiar.” He was totally expecting his father to die at any time but he has great difficulty processing this news,” I told myself that this was a good thing; that his spirit was free to do whatever it was that spirits do. I didn’t really believe that, but I needed something ‘tangible’ to believe in, to hang my heart/hat on while I came to terms with this fact.”

The seven poems in the chapbook add layers of myth and metaphor to RD Armstrong’s musings about his late father. He consciously goes in search of the black rabbit to see if it can help him make sense of the traumatic situation. In ‘Tracking the Rabbit’ the persona follows the rabbit through the snow to try to uncover its secrets, only to have it disappear into thin air without a trace with “no sad farewells/ Or long goodbyes.” In ‘The Black Rabbit Makes an Appearance at a Poetry Reading’, RD is reading a poem by Tony Moffeit and the black rabbit somehow pops into his head. He explicitly describes it as “the mythical spirit guide/metaphor for my/ Dad guiding him from this world to the next” and partially explains its appearance as being the result of “emotion not dealt with”, including the memories he harbours of his mentally ill dad with “big sad eyes and quivering lower lip.” In “The Day Room” RD painfully describes his helpless father as “the soon to be black rabbit” and as “a frightened little/ bunny/ trapped in this/ slumping body// awaiting the shroud.”

The crowning achievement of the collection is perhaps “Poem for My Father” in which RD Armstrong uses elevated elegiac allusions to compare his father’s passing with that of a great and noble figure:

Poem for My Father

He was a tree

He’d be an oak

With gnarled branches

And many rings

If he was mythic

He’d be Odin

An ancient god

With many a tale to tell

If he was a sea

He’d be the Sargasso

A kelp filled pocket

Of unexplained

Mysteries

But he was a man

Bent with age

No longer plunging

Headlong into the darkness

Forging his own way

And as such his last days

Were spent lost in a

Chaotic storm filled night

Alone and frightened

He was at last

A black rabbit

Trembling in my arms

Waiting for Morpheus

To gather him up

And carry him from

The battlefield

(reprinted with the author’s permission)

We are given a further glimpse of the rabbit in ‘That Damn Rabbit’. The poem represents a significant turning point in Armstrong’s acceptance of his father’s passing. In the poem he has “another strange vision” of the rabbit sitting on his haunches “and staring at me from/ Across the river Styx”. He realises that the black rabbit is of his own creation, and therefore, can be shaped and controlled by him as he sees fit:

His beady eyes staring me down

Probing into my soul…I can

Feel them penetrating deep

Deep deeper until I find myself

Shouting as loud as I can

What are you doin’? What right

Do ya have to probe my soul

Ya bloody rabbit! Then I

Remember that the rabbit is of

My own creation…so it’s

Really me knockin’ on my

Own backdoor tryin’ to show

Me something in a different

Light or in a different way

In the final blog narrative ‘Letting Go’ (28 January 2015) RD comments that he was surprized by the notes of concern and condolences he has received following his father’s death. The last time he saw him alive “he was very much a vegetable, not my dad” and concedes “so death, was a release from the suffering of this life.”

Through each text we gradually become more aware of the larger picture, although RD’s relationship with his dad, particularly as a young adult is left murky, incomplete. Interestingly, we are only offered glimpses of what his father, Thomas Armstrong was like as RD grew up. The poems ‘You Me and the Dog’ and ‘The Talisman’ refer to a kind of idealised past of “happy times” when his dad and his first wife, RD’s mother, were “still in love.” In ‘You Me and the Dog’, RD cryptically wonders out loud directly to his dad as to whether things could have turned out differently for the family:

I wonder what would have happened

If your dream had remained small

Where would we have ended up

RD explained these lines to me yesterday, “When we moved to Calif. from Indiana, it was like it said in the poem, my dad, my mom and me. He was an electrical engineer in the beginnings of the aerospace era, we lived in a trailer off base and my dad’s idea of a wild night was to cruise on his Indian motorcycle w/pony skin upholstery. It was a simple life...I don't know whose Idea it was to move but after a while we moved and my dad got a bigger dream. 

“See my dad had three careers: Elec. Eng., then Attorney, finally as construction exec. In the end he was a glorified landlord, picking up checks. But by then he was showing signs of dementia. So he retired. A few years later he died. But he'd had three careers, three wives, two planes, three boats, four kids...it was a lot different than you me and mom." 

The family eventually drifted apart and RD embarked on his own path as a young man. In ‘Blues for the Old Man’, RD expresses gratitude that much later in life he was able to make some amends with his old man: “I’ve spent most of my life being a mystery to him and it wasn’t until recently that I was able to come to some sort of understanding with him, a negotiated peace of sorts. I guess I’m lucky to have gotten six years out of the deal.”

In his ‘Afterward’ Armstrong says that he has some regrets and implies that he wasn’t as close to his dad as he would have wanted to be but he is firm and unapologetic: “I wish I could have given him the things that a father would like, a wife, a family, a career that he could be proud of… but life had a different plan for me, one that took me out on another track. I regret these things that I couldn’t offer up to him myself. But I ended up going it alone. While I can’t say if this way was better than some other, I only know that this is the way I have gone.”

This is a deeply personal and inventive response to death from a son’s perspective. The work is richly layered and profoundly authentic. It is heartfelt, without being sentimental.

More about the book and where to purchase it: http://www.lummoxpress.com/lc/tracking-the-rabbit/

Read selections from the book here: https://issuu.com/poetraindog/docs/rabbitsampler

Featuring Matthew Borczon

Killing Ghosts

in shaking

and sleepless nights

in flashbacks

brought on

by triggers

I barely recognize

in paranoid rituals

I follow like

a road to salvation

in the moments

between awake

and asleep

I walk with ghosts

ghosts of soldiers

with no names

of Marines

with no legs

of children

with missing hands

and open wounds

from playing

on battlefields

of burn victims

black as pitch

who could be

men or women

soldier or civilian

adult or child

all crumbling

in front of me

like charcoal

some carry equipment

suction pumps

and IV stands

with dirty dressings

over infected skin grafts

and I have found

nothing in 5 years

to make them

want to leave

so they stay

inside my head

behind my eyes

in the darkest

corners of my life

because even

after 5 years

I still can’t

find a way

to even try

to kill the ghosts

of people

I was supposed

to save.

Baby, what’s mine is yours

Tasting bile

in the

back of

my throat

from screaming

at my wife

until  I

am too

hoarse

to apologies

and too

scared

to tell

her it

was the

smell of

burning meat

as she

cooked

on a

hot day

that put

me back

in that uniform

in that hospital

again.

Night terrors 2

After a

long night

full of

bad dreams

and sweaty

sheets

a crow

caws shrill

to tell

me that

I am

already dead

and

that  my

body is

back in

Afghanistan

in 2011

I wake

asking

him to

tell me

something

I don’t

already know.

The lies we tell

Mine.

the food

is good

I like

the hours

I read

a lot

the air

does not

taste like

ash and

blood or

smell like

burning flesh

I’m too

busy to

miss home

my dreams

are not

filled with

the cries

of dying

children.

Yours.

you’re fine

it’s easier

than you

thought

and everything

is getting

done and

school keeps

the kids

too busy

to worry

about you

Ezra no

longer asks

if I

think you

will die

and Hannah

did not

cry all

day on

Christmas

holding the

card you

sent her

and no

you don’t

think this

will change

us at all.

  

In between

You were

the first

to try

to grant

me

absolution

the first

to tell

me don’t

be too

hard on

myself

you were

the last

as well

but in

between

is me

and blood

covered nightmares

and ash

covered memories

and missing limbs

and me.

Good Days

Some days

I even

remember

good things

skies clear

of helicopters

and warm

evenings with

a real

Cuban cigar

talking with

young soldiers

completely

unaware

of how

much of

this war

I would

bring home.

BIO: Matthew Borczon is a nurse and Navy sailor. He has written two books of poetry, A Clock of Human Bones from the yellow chair review press and Battle Lines from Epic Rites. This summer he will release Ghost Train through Weasel Press and Sleepless Nights and Ghost Soldiers from Grey Borders Press. He has four children three jobs and still manages to find time to write and publishes often in the small press.

Book Review/ Interview: Matthew Borczon Battle Lines. Epic Rites Press, Sherwood Park, 2017 (50 pages).

Battle Lines is the second collection of poems by the Erie, Pennsylvania resident Matthew Borczon. He was a nurse and Navy sailor at Camp Bastian during 2010-2011, which at the time, was the busiest combat hospital in Afghanistan. Upon his return to the United States, Borczon was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in 2012 and started writing as a form of therapy. In a recent interview with BM, which follows this review, he explains, “I was unable to talk about the war and a therapist said I needed to get my story out somehow.” But as Borczon has painfully discovered, the writing hasn’t made the ghosts of his nightmares to go away.

There are 40 short poems in the collection. The language is understated and carved to the bone. There are typically only two words in each line and the words cascade down the page, similar in form to the late outlaw poet Todd Moore. The poems tightly compress Borczon’s most recent reflections into his post-war condition but he also includes the narratives of others he has heard about from a string of wars, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam and World War I.

Borczon says of the title, Battle Lines, “There was some discussion about what it meant and was it a fitting title? I used it as a way of saying that for some of us the war is not over, not just me but I know Viet Nam vets who still have a lot of trouble and I can say honestly I do not know of anyone who comes through a war and is the same after.” 

Although Borczon was not a front-line combatant, his role as an emergency trauma nurse, would have brutally exposed him to death and dying on a daily basis. The collection does not explore his role as a medic, but rather focuses on his return home to America and how he has struggled since to make sense of it all. We experience his nightmares, his panic attacks, the resentment some people express towards him in the community, we sit beside him at group therapy, enter his workplace- & along the way, we come to better understand why he needs a drink or a smoke, and most importantly,  how he has become estranged from his family.

Borczon subtly incorporates his thoughts and impressions onto the page and his use of stark, realistic imagery and language adds authenticity to his writing. In some key poems, we are able to join the dots to help us better understand his sense of hopelessness and disintegration. In “Brian emailed” he explains to his friend about the presence of his online poetry: "I am/ just trying/ to make/ sense out/ of everything/ we saw". In “the inmate”, the prisoner, an ex-soldier, discovers that his new cell number is the same as the squad number he has tattooed on his forearm. Borczon, working as a prison nurse, is asked if he thought this “meant something.” He replies:

I no longer

believe anything

means anything.

In “like war” Borczon admits that he “knew what to expect” but didn’t think he’d  “come back… in pieces”:

like war

movies and

dime store

novels I

thought I

knew what

to expect

I never

thought I

would come

home pure

but I

expected

to come

back whole

instead of

in pieces

(reprinted with the permission of the author)

Some of Borczon’s best work are the terse, imagist micro-poems such as “in the”, “Kevlar chest”, “I once” and “helicopters” which further hint at the terrifying and unrelenting ghosts embodied in his imagination.

Borczon’s writing is perhaps most compassionate when he describes the impact of the war on his own family. In a series of poems, “when I", “my mother”, “my wife”, and “for Dana”, he represents how his deployment in the Afghani War has smashed to pieces his pre-war identity and how the casualties of war are not only those who served, but also their loved ones- the children, partners and parents. In “for Dana” the reader feels a pulse of humanity, long suppressed by Borczon in the careful, deadpan delivery of his poems. The broken, hollow man temporarily stirs & perhaps even sheds a tear:

for Dana

hold me

and squeeze

the ash

out of

my heart

the sand

from inside

my skin

lean in

and sing

into my

ear until

the ghosts

leave

run your

cool hands

over my

118 degree

nightmares

and if

I start

to cry

all the

tears I

have will

you build

a boat

out of

your memories

of our

life before

the war

(reprinted with the permission of the author)

About 15 of the poems in the collection are third person portrait poems which provide snap-shots into the post-war lives of veterans, in particular, how they are psychologically maimed as a result of their war experiences. The most disturbing amongst these poems is “his neighbour” in which a bunkered down vet decides to kill a vexatious neighbour, but impulsively shoots himself through the head instead.

Also memorable is “Randy repaired” about an Iraqi war vet who used to fix bicycles for the local children, but “now he/ can’t get/ through a/ night without/ a bottle/ of tequila/ and a/ machete.” The poem “Gary’s been” furthers the idea of dislocation and paranoia. Even after being back from Iraq for 8 years, he “still/ won’t pull/ right up/ behind a/ strange car/ at stoplights.” “Andi Got” succinctly expresses the numbness, the sense of death that many veterans feel. He orders a farming magazine from England and wryly says,

I need

to put

something

in the

ground that

is not

dead

In "they were" before a physical induction, Frank drops a stack of weights onto a guy’s foot so he can avoid serving in Viet Nam. Each of these poems adds to our understanding of the grievous impact war has on everyone involved. We never find heroes in this collection, only victims- who are traumatised for life.  

The book’s jacket was designed by Richard Robert Hansen publisher of poems-for-all. It is sepia coloured photograph and adjoins the front and back covers. It features a column of American soldiers rushing to board what appears to be a Blackhawk helicopter, which is blurred in the distance. The difficulty of establishing the time and place of the photo is deliberate, and perhaps Hansen is universalising the traumatic impact that all wars have on those who bravely serve as represented by Borczon’s work.

This is an outstanding but short collection of poems by a writer who has survived a war but who is perilously clinging on. Asked this morning about how his head was now, Borczon vulnerably replied: “I think I have given up on the idea that I can ever really get better, I hope to get better at living with all of this. My symptoms come and go, lately it has been extreme anxiety, and panic but some days it is other things as well. I still have nightmares pretty much every week, but I am better at processing them and just kind of moving on after they happen though. I do the best I can, I still have a job and the wife has not left me yet and my kids are all healthy and happy so I do not feel like I have a lot to complain about.”

BIO: Matthew Borczon is a nurse and Navy sailor. He has written two books of poetry, A Clock of Human Bones from the yellow chair review press and Battle Lines from Epic Rites. This summer he will release Ghost Train through Weasel Press and Sleepless Nights and Ghost Soldiers from Grey Borders Press. He has four children three jobs and still manages to find time to write and publishes often in the small press.

Find out more about the book and purchase it here: http://www.epicrites.org/rumors-and-rumblings-of-war/battle-lines or here: http://www.epicrites.org/pre-order.html

INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW BORCZON 18 JANUARY 2017

Can you explain why you started writing about your war experiences in Afghanistan?

I started writing as a form of personal therapy, I was unable to talk about the war and a therapist said I needed to get my story out somehow. I had written poetry a lot as a young man and it just sort of came out that way.

I have a friend who quit nursing after facing the trauma one night of a carload of critically injured teenagers in a small regional emergency ward. You've seen a lot of shit. How were you able to grind it out overseas for those two years?

The job is just the job. There was no other choice, probably why it is so hard now. At the time you suppress how unreal and bloody it is. Hell, we even laughed at it at the time. The hours were long but it is what you signed on to do so you do what they ask. I remember wondering if I should not be bothered by how normal it all felt at the time. It really was only after that it started to affect me.

You were trained for the job and knew what to expect. When did it all start unravelling for you? Was it a specific or a culmination of events. 

Some people close to me say I was different the minute I got off the plane, but it was only a couple of months before even my wife was saying I needed to figure out what was wrong with me. I do not think it was one thing though. The nightmares started right away so that was my first clue.

Can you briefly explain how your diagnosis of PTSD was determined in 2012? What medical benefits did that diagnosis allow you to access?

I was referred to the va by a counselor I was seeing, the VA system has a group of evaluations and tests to help them determine the diagnosis. I am currently 70% disabled, this money made it possible to trade down to an easier nursing job. I had been a prison nurse and the job was brutal, long hours and there was real danger in it at times, which my therapist thought was really unhealthy for me.

When you returned home, how had you changed and how had others, including family and friends perceived you differently?

I was anxious, depressed and angry all the time. I isolated and drank way too much and then there were a lot of unhealthy thoughts about whether or not I still wanted to be alive.

Wolf Carstens of Epic Rites Press is a huge fan of your first book of poetry, A Clock Of Human Bones. What was the process like in getting Battle Lines into print? 

I am a huge fan of Wolfs writing and after he read A Clock of Human Bones he sent me some of his books to read. I did not have another book to send him so I just made a small chap book on my computer then sent that to him. I called it my fictitious chap book. After he read it he said he wanted to put it out. After that it all moved really quick, he has a ton of good energy and he brings it all to his projects. I really enjoy working with him.

In Battle Lines, why did you decide to include a separate page to provide "a full definition of battle line"?

There was some discussion about what it meant and was it a fitting title. I used it as a way of saying that for some of us the war is not over, not just me but I know Viet Nam vets who still have a lot of trouble and I can say honestly I do not know of anyone who comes through a war and is the same after. Not that I have met anyway.

How is your head now? (Are you still experiencing nightmares? Flashbacks? Panic Attacks?) What has helped you in putting some of the pieces back together again?

I think I have given up on the idea that I can ever really get better, I hope to get better at living with all of this. My symptoms come and go, lately it has been extreme anxiety, and panic but some days it is other things as well. I still have nightmares pretty much every week, but I am better at processing them and just kind of moving on after they happen though. I do the best I can, I still have a job and the wife has not left me yet and my kids are all healthy and happy so I do not feel like I have a lot to complain about.

Who are some of your literary influences in writing of your books and who are you reading now?

I love the writing of Wolf Carstens and John Yamrus, I also love a lot of the small press writers. Jason Baldinger is a Pittsburgh favorite. For larger literary types I loved CK Williams and Jim Carroll had a special place in my early writing life. I enjoy Bukowski, like everyone else. I am currently reading a whole lot of small press poetry from folks like Sarah Francis Moran and Rusty Barnes.

How do you presently juggle your professional work with that of an aspiring writer?

The writing is easy and I usually do it in my car waiting to take my kids to school. The poems are always there just like the nightmares. The working on my career such as it is takes a lot more time. I submit a whole lot and I am always somewhere into the next book idea. I work as a practical nurse for a social service agency so I am pretty busy in my work life that is probably why it is mostly poetry, no time to write fiction. Though I have published 4 short stories in 2016.

What do you have in mind for your next project?

I just agreed to put out a chap book with Grey Boarders press from Canada, they are interested in maybe putting out my first full collection of poetry sometime in 2018. I also have a chap book coming in June from Weasel press called Ghost Train. There is also another manuscript shopping around now, but that one has nothing to do with the war. I try to not only write about my PTSD, though it is hard to get away from.

Thanks Matt.

Selected Online Poems

If you haven’t read Matthew Borczon’s poetry before, the following five poems will provide you with a taste: 

“what i did in the war” (Chicken and Coffee): http://www.friedchickenandcoffee.com/2015/12/12/what-i-did-in-the-war-poem-by-matt-borczon/

“Finished” and “What we never talk about” (Drunk In A Midnight Choir): https://drunkinamidnightchoir.com/2016/04/26/two-poems-matt-borczon/

“Sitting In The Dark” (Your One Phone Call): https://youronephonecall.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/sitting-in-the-dark-by-matthew-borczon/

“VA Appointment” (Your One Phone Call): https://youronephonecall.wordpress.com/2017/01/01/va-appointment-by-matthew-borczon/

Further Resources: 

Poets Underground Presents Matthew Borczon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7WLwuELZ1U